Sopogy, Inc. wins “New Product of the Year” from the National Society of Professional Engineers

July 26, 2008

SOPOGY PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: 7/26/08

Contact: Sopogy Corporate Communications

Email: media@sopogy.org

808-237-2324

Subject: Sopogy wins New Product of the Year award from the National Society of Professional Engineers.

Portland, OR – Sopogy, Inc., wins the National Society of Professional Engineers’ (NSPE) New Product of the Year Award for its MicroCSP Solar Collector “SopoNova 4.0” at the NSPE’s Annual Conference this year held in Portland, Oregon.

The NSPE New Product of the Year Awards look for new and improved products that stimulate the life and growth of our country. These benefits result from research and development to which engineers make their unique contribution. This competition recognizes the results of those efforts and the foresight of the companies whose aggressive policies bring new products to the marketplace.

“SopoNova 4.0 combines the reliable performance of conventional Concentrating Parabolic Trough technologies with several novel concepts that include the World’s first integrated 270 degree MicroCSP tracker, integrated stands and custom controls” said Darren T. Kimura, CEO of Sopogy. He continued “after 40+ unique prototypes and thousands of engineering hours invested in the SopoNova product line, this award from one of the Nation’s most respected engineering societies is tribute to Sopogy’s spirit of innovation”.

Sopogy is the first renewable energy and solar technology to ever be awarded this honor. Previous winners of NSPE’s New Product of the Year include Boeing’s 777, Mercedes Benz M-Class All Activity Vehicle and Chrysler’s PT Cruiser.

About the National Society of Professional Engineers
Founded in 1934 NSPE is one of the nations oldest and most respected engineering associations with over 54,000 members and the public through more than 500 chapters and 53 state and territorial societies.

About Sopogy
Sopogy specializes in MicroCSP solar technologies that bring the economics of large solar energy systems to the industrial, commercial and utility sectors in a smaller, robust and more cost effective package. Sopogy’s goals include to create solar solutions that improve the quality of life for all human kind and to bring order and simplicity to the chaos which is the current solar power business. Please visit www.sopogy.org for more information.

If giant solar thermal power plants spread across the desert are like a mainframe, Sopogy is making the equivalent of a personal computer.

The Hawaii-based company on Tuesday at the Intersolar 2008 conference will show off the latest version of its MicroCSP–essentially a shrunk-down version of concentrating solar power (CSP) equipment used in power plants.

The SopaNova 4.0, a “micro concentrated solar power” trough, has been redesigned to be longer and use less material.

It’s a trough with a reflective coating that focuses sunlight onto a pipe that carries an oil. That heated liquid goes through an organic Rankine cycle engine to convert it into electricity.
The conventional thinking in solar these days is to think big. Proposals for concentrating solar power plants call for hundreds of rows of troughs or mirrors to make steam to drive an electricity turbine. The output of these proposed plants will be hundreds of megawatts, approaching the size of traditional power plants.
Sopogy’s product, called SopaNova 4.0, is aimed at utilities as well, but for smaller-scale projects, in the range of 250 kilowatts to 25 megawatts. The latest edition is longer–between 12 feet and 18 feet long–than previous editions because of a new manufacturing process.
“On cost per watt, we’re cheaper than PV (photovoltaics),” said CEO Darren Kimura. “But that’s not what really matters. We can do more production. We actually get more sun energy every day.”
With a higher output, the payback on an initial investment comes quicker, he argued. The troughs can be used by corporate customers as well for on-site power generation.
In terms of the efficiency of converting sunlight to electricity, the SopaNova is between 20 percent and 30 percent, he said. That’s lower than its larger CSP cousins, which operate at higher temperatures, but better than most solar photovoltaic cells.
Unlike flat solar photovoltaic panels, solar thermal systems have storage today. In practice, Sopogy’s trough systems can store a few hours worth of electricity, which can be used when electricity is more expensive or when there isn’t light.
Sopogy is thinking relatively small when it comes to its own capital needs.
The company raised $9 million in venture funding earlier this year and got a $35 million special-purpose bond from the state of Hawaii.
Later this year, Sopogy will look to raise another round of equity, which will be more than its past round but far less than the huge deals–some topping $100 million–announced by traditional CSP companies.
“We’re trying to demonstrate that you can do solar technology but still be capex (capital expenditure)-light,” Kimura said.
Ultimately, the company intends to go public. “The goal in solar is to become a really big company and the market space allows for that. If you don’t, you’ll get acquired,” Kimura said.
The company has about 20 customers now. The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii recently broke ground on a project to install thousands of the troughs to ultimately make one megawatt of electricity.
The troughs can also be used to generate process heat, which can be used in a variety of applications, Kimura said.

“Since 2002, Sopogy has been inventing, testing and validating our unique MicroCSP technologies. SopoNova 4 marks our 40th version of technology improvement. We’ve learned many valuable lessons through our six years of research and development and incorporated those lessons into our most efficient and lowest cost product yet. In SopoNova 4 we’ve incorporated form and function with a visually appealing yet robust and cost effective concentrating solar collector,” said Darren Kimura, president and CEO of Sopogy.

The Sopogy MicroCSP solar collector system is concentrating panel that was modeled after the successful installation of concentrating panels in the Mojave Desert in the mid 1980’s. The product design includes modularity, customized tracking, efficient shipping, storm protection, and automatic operation. The heat generated by the concentrator can be used to power turbines to create electricity or used directly for industrial process heating and solar cooling. The technology captures cost efficiencies by operating in lower temperatures which enable general contractor installation, low cost thermal energy storage and is facility safe.

To see Al Yuen PhD, director of corporate development for Sopogy discuss the product launch and the company’s business, play the video below.

Honolulu, HI – Keahole Solar Power, a Concentrated Solar Power solar farm, breaks ground Wednesday July 9, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. with an event hosted by Sopogy, Inc. on the Big Island at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii. The solar farm will be built in phases over several acres and is the first of its kind in the world to make large-scale use of Hawaii based Sopogy’s proprietary solar concentrating systems known as MicroCSP technologies.

MicroCSP systems use reflectors and optics that harness the energy from the sun to create heat that passes through a turbine to produce electricity. The Sopogy MicroCSP solar collector system is a robust and elegant concentrating panel that was modeled after the very successful installation of concentrating panels in the Mojave Desert in the mid 1980’s. These traditional panels at the Solar Energy Generating Station have been producing 354 megawatts energy for over 2 decades, enough power for the Big Island and Maui. “MicroCSP technologies combine the efficiencies of traditional Concentrated Solar Power collectors but incorporate new key elements that are required for operation in Hawaii. These elements include a stronger more durable frame that is able to withstand against storms and operating temperatures that enable Hawaii’s contractors to install and service the system,” said Darren T. Kimura the President and CEO of Sopogy.

“Our leading edge MicroCSP solar research began in Kona in 2002 with one concentrating system and it is appropriate that Kona is the home for the world’s first deployment of a MicroCSP solar field,” Kimura said. “Our technologies create energy from the sun, a sustainable and renewable energy resource and will help Hawaii break its bonds to imported fossil fuel.”

“This is the first renewable energy project at the Natural Energy Laboratory in over 30 years” stated representatives from NELHA.

Selected dignitaries including former Governor George Ariyoshi, Sopogy, Inc. Chairman of the Board of Directors and Founder, Darren T. Kimura, Representative Jon Riki Karamatsu and others will be on hand to participate in the highly anticipated ground breaking ceremony. Once the first Phase is completed, Keahole Solar Power will produce electricity for over 100 Hawaii homes. In its entirety, the project can scale up to a 1 megawatt solar farm capable of powering 500 Hawaii homes and off setting over 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, the equivalent of removing 367 cars from Hawaii roads.

The blessing will be done by Sopogy’s Hawaiian Kahu and event will be powered by renewable solar energy and the greenhouse gas emissions from the travel, preparation, set-up and all festivities will be offset with green certificates.

About Sopogy
Sopogy specializes in MicroCSP solar technologies that bring the economics of large solar energy systems to the industrial, commercial and utility sectors in a smaller, robust and more cost effective package. Please visit www.sopogy.org for more information.